I hate to keep flogging this dead horse, but...

Sebastian Weinberg <bastian@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de> wrote:

In message <199801050117.RAA16015@m3.sprynet.com> Richard Lawson wrote:

: > From: Gary Kleppe [mailto:KLEPPE@execpc.com]

: > IMO, triggering the mental disorder that literally makes him lose his
: > mind is far beyond the emotional distress she caused him in that story.
: 
: I don't see that.  After all, it causes no damage to Ranma's psyche, and
: is actually beneficial in that in lifts his inhibitions. 

That's the way it is played in the Manga, but when you look at it
realistically, that hardly seems likely.

*Shrug* I guess it's just a matter of how you see the neko-ken.
Personally, conscious thought and intelligence are things I value most
highly. Stories where they get taken away from someone (I think
Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan was one) almost always send a chill up my
spine. I have a *really* hard time accepting that such a thing is for
the victim's own good.

Err, Gary was talking about the Manga story.  I disagree, though -
the way I see it, her motive was simple revenge, not teaching him
something.  Her actions in that story were not aimed to give Ranma
any insight or condition him to act in some way - she was quite
simply terrorizing him and driving him up the walls as a payback
for the grief he caused her with his recklessness.

Huh? If she wasn't intentionally using a kind of behavioral conditioning
technique on Ranma in that manga chapter, then she was doing a pretty
good job of it by accident.

Psychological research teaches us some important things about punishment
"therapy". For one thing, in order for it to work, the punishment has to
follow directly from the unwanted behavior. Notice the way Nab did it in
the manga. It's each time Ranma thinks he's got one up on her that he
gets punished. That's an effective way of teaching him that you *can't*
get one up on Nabiki.

BTW, another good example of this is in the latest chapter of "Return of
the Sisters," where Kuno has his voice taken away everytime he speaks in
a particular way.

Another thing about behavior modification via punishment is that it has
a chance to produce unpleasant side effects. For example, total
avoidance behavior, in which the victim... er, subject ends up wanting
to totally avoid any interaction with the situation in question, e.g.
students dropping out of school. It would probably suit manga-Nabby just
fine if Ranma started avoiding her completely, but it doesn't seem like
the one in this story would want anything like this.

: > The only lesson likely here is "Be wary when Nabiki
: > offers to help you for free" -- which she might not *want* him to learn.
: 
: Or that if Ranma would stop being such a yutz and admit to himself that he
: likes Akane, he'd have a much happier life.  :)

Huh, not likely at all.  I'll have to agree with Gary here, with
the addition that it is the only lesson *Ranma* is likely to learn

>from it.

Whereas it looks like he DID learn something at the end of that manga
story. I rest my case.


Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics